For Ramesh and his wife Ratna of Kalapura ward here, the recent petrol and gas price hikes are a joke, at least for the last eight days. For, the couple have been enjoying non-stop, free supply of an unknown gas that they have been utilising for cooking purposes after they tried to sink a bore-well in their backyard.
The episode began unfolding two weeks back, when Ramesh contracted a few youngsters from his locality to sink the bore-well. The digging brigade toiled for two days, digging more than 16 feet into the earth, but with not a single drop of water to be found. When they decided for a final effort and tried to join two PVC pipes as part of the digging process, they were in for a shock. The small fire that they lit to heat the pipes would not die out, and even as they jumped back in horror, the fire kept burning, not spreading, but without going down, constantly from one spot, according to the house-owners.
The youngsters were of the experimenting type. And they connected another pipe from the hole they had dug straight to a gas stove. The stove’s burner, when lit, burnt bright as usual. No change in the colour of flame, and unlike normal LPG, there was no odour. And for the last eight days, the family has been using the unknown gas for cooking purposes. What more, they gave a connection from the pipe to Ramesh’s brother Sabu’s adjacent house as well.
There has been no official or scientific inspection of the episode so far. But the incident is drawing visitors to the spot.
